Here's Hoover!

Photograph by Ioulex

There’s a freewheeling genius to the work of Les Freres Corbusier. At first glance, the theatre troupe seems like a bunch of overeducated kids happily tramping about in the legacies of past Presidents (“President Harding Is a Rock Star,” “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson”) or religions (“A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant,” “Hell House”), but there’s usually a message that cuts through all that zany satire. Alex Timbers, who co-founded the group, in 2003, has gone on to direct big-budget shows like “Rocky,” but he returns downtown with “Here’s Hoover!,” at Abrons Arts Center. The show, modelled on Elvis Presley’s “Comeback Special,” from 1968, has Herbert Hoover singing rueful rockabilly songs in an attempt to rise above his reputation as one of the worst Presidents in American history.

This article appears in the print edition of the December 8, 2014, issue, with the headline “This Week.”